READINESS TO ACCEPT NEW QUEEN(​or Readiness Control mode)

​ “Readiness to accept the queen” or “queen lack” experienced by the bees - is a specialized examination of bee colony, used when replacing the queen, during colony’s division for suppression of swarming impulse, and during the reception of nucleuses. The principle was developed in 1957 and used in work with Apidictor device. Application of the device for determining the most suitable moment for grafting a new queen will help to save expensive reproductive queen bees, as well as the time and strength of the colony, with protection from error during the division or nucleuses receiving. During colony division in half to prevent swarming without seeking the queen, a question raises – in which of the two hives the queen ended up? This mode will help to answer this question by comparing the signal strengths in both hives. When you create a nucleus of the core colony, based on sealed brood and young bees, the checking of the nucleus with the device will make sure that the queen did not accidentally get into the nucleus or, vice versa, had not been left in the main colony.​

Queen bee absence and readiness to accept a new queenDIAGNOSTIC METHODThis mode is applicable when replacing the queen with the young one in the main colony, as well as to create layering or division of the colony in half, mixed with anti-swarming purposes. The main objective of the mode is to determine the place where the queen is absent, the degree of queen lack experienced by the bees and their readiness to accept the new queen.If you removed the queen, a beehive starts to "Sing". You can see the energy of this signal on the "Singing" display. When this signal reaches the maximum, the new queen can be introduced by just placing it to the cell, and it will be accepted without any problems.

​If the hive remains without a queen so long that the ‘Singing” signal fades and returns to the initial reading, with its level slowly changing - "floating", then placing a new queen to such colony becomes very difficult. This period can last from 20 minutes to 4-5 days.

If the quiver of a pointer appears on “Singing” frequency, it is a so-called "growl" - a LF pulse sequence filled with a signal of about 250Hz frequency. This is an alarm, occurring in the colony under the influence of external conditions, such as theft, for example.

METHOD OF DIAGNOSTIC PRESENCE/ABSENCE OF BEE QUEEN IN THE HIVEDURING THE PROCESS OF DIVISION OF THE BEE FAMILY WITHOUT LOOKING FOR BEE QUEEN

During colony division in half to prevent swarming without seeking the queen, a question raises – in which of the two hives the queen ended up? This mode will help to answer this question by comparing the signal strengths in both hives. In half of the colony with the queen bee, queenless condition will not appear, and a hive will not "Sing". Conversely, in a half with no queen a queenless feeling will start to grow. Beehive will start to "Sing." Thus, comparison of the results of measurements in the first and second halves of the colony will determine which of them requires introduction of new queen or addition of queen cell.

When you create a nucleus of the core colony, based on sealed brood and young bees, the checking of the nucleus with the device will make sure that the queen did not accidentally get into the nucleus or, vice versa, had not been left in the main colony.

WINDOW 1

On the screen you can see two indicators :- Left indicator shows trend of correlation between the normal condition of the family ( passive or working state) and the feeling of queenless. Green zone - queenless is not felt by the family. Red zone - the family feels queenless.- Right indicator shows the strength of queenless signal, relatively to the overall background. Higher the signal volume - increases the value indicated by device - the arrow moving in the direction of the red (max) zone.- Joint arrows indicating as far right as possible in the red area means the maximum degree of the feeling of queenless by the family.

WINDOW 2

- On the screen you can see the graph, which use as data monitored on the time axis, the value of ratio between the normal state of the family (passive or working state) and the state of feeling queenless. The graph window has dimencions for 1.5 hours of continuous monitoring. After filling out the window, it is shifts. Values below zero ( white) indicate a lack of queenless sensation in the family. Values ​​above zero (red) show the presence of the signal, which means feeling of queenless in the bee family.- It was recommended by Woods to put new queen in the family, when you see the achievement of a maximum values of the graph and the beginning of the recession of queenless signal. The signal can be held from dozens of minutes to an hour. But we recommend not to wait for the end of the "red cap" on the chart and its apparent tendency to movement to the white zone, but insert new queen immediately, when "red cap" become stable.

The control sequence is as follows First of all, when you start to work with the hive, adjust the microphone gain in order to see all the peaks and highs from blue to red. With microphone gain, (use the rotary control with the toggle "MIC", switched to ON ) you can choose the most suitable signal amplification to draw a clear picture of the signals. This is needed for further work using all modes of the device. Normally, it is needed to choose the desired gain, for each bee family. But practically, you don't needed to change it, if you see good signals of the bees in this beehive. This adjustments are made in Monitoring mode, which is the "default" mode, when you are starting your work with device, and between measurements, if any other mode is not selected.​1) Without deleting of the queen, turn on the "Readiness Control" mode.2) Switch to the graph (Window 2) and watch for about 10-15 minutes. If the graph is white, then you can continue. If read - it is not good time to change the queen.3) Delete the queen. The device continue to draw a graph.4) If the chart passes into the upper half and becomes completely red, it means a sense of queenless by the bees. Wait for the maximum of the schedule or approach to it. This is the best time for the return of the queen. Do not wait for the return of the graph to the white zone, but be sure that you are close to the peak of red part of the graph, ( "red cap")

Changing the queen using this mode, we don't recomend to do, during the time of modulatory signals, typically during 7-10 am and 5-8 pm. Depending on the season and weather, these intervals can be shifted a little. To avoid this, we recommend, prior to deleting of old queen out of the family, to hold the next monitoring procedure ( have a look at video film 27 and 27-1) :

We do not recommend to use this mode, in order to determine the queenless of the family in normal everyday conditions. Acoustic signal, which is used in this mode, disappears in a short time after the loss of the queen. It can stay for a long time only if the queen is lost, and the family don\'t have young brood to make queen cells.

In any case, the device does not make any decisions. The final decision - what to do, always make the beekeeper.